Tag Archives: Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival

September flew right on by! A birthday, an anniversary (35 years!), a pattern in By Hand Serial #4, and Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival.

I had the great good fortune to be the knitting judge at OFFF, and it was challenging and fun. I worked with two scribes, and made my way through a vast number of knitted goods. You may wonder what gets submitted most, and the answer is “shawls!” Which is right in my wheelhouse. There were also sweaters, scarves, cowls, and some doll clothes. One small blanket and a couple toys. My job was to make categories, comment on all submissions (thank you, scribes!), and then choose the best in each category. The laceweight shawl above was the best (in my opinion) knitted item.

The crochet judge chose this filet crochet dragon shawl as the best crochet piece.

And the felting judge chose this piece as the best felted piece.

Our job after that was to confer and decide best overall. They were all stunningly beautiful pieces, but in the end we chose lace, partly because that was this year’s theme, and then it came down to “how does it wear?”

This was perfect. Light, airy, floaty, and the stitch pattern was well displayed when worn. Congratulations to the winner! (I don’t even know her name…)

I did a little shopping, and was astounded by the tiny Bee Hummingbird spindles Ed Jenkins is making, even smaller than his Kuchulus. I haven’t spun with the Kuchulu I picked up at Sock Summit 2011, so no new spindle for me! Good thing, because you had to enter a drawing to win the chance to puchase one. My friend Leigh got one, and she’s very pleased.

Chatted with Stacey at Fierce Fibers about an idea for another gradient shawl, inspired by some things I saw at OFFF that were NOT knitted. Cross-pollination of ideas, right?

And bought some notions from Maria from A Needle Runs Through It in the Knitted Wit booth. I love useful little things!

Don’t forget the animal barns! I never made it to the bunny barn, but my goddaughter E joined me in the main barn.

And I taught two classes, Fixing Lace Mistakes and Elongated Novelty Stitches. It was a very full weekend! Still trying to catch up.

The Go Tell the Bees KAL is underway, and we’re having a grand time chatting over in the Ravelry thread. It’s not too late to join the KAL; we’re knitting at our own pace and just having fun. Some of the tips that have come out of the cast on thread are particularly helpful, so I thought I’d share them here.

I chose the cable cast on for the beginning of this project, which starts at the lower edge. Why not use a long tail cast on? Because the cast on is huge, 350-400 stitches. I’d hate to run out of yarn just before my goal.

Why not use the two ended long tail cast on? Because I’m using a gradient/ombre ball of yarn, which means that the other end is a different color. I thought it might be pretty that way, but I tried it and it wasn’t at all pretty.

Also, the first row after a long tail cast on is the purl/bumpy side, which is part of why it wasn’t pretty, for this particular pattern. The first row after a cable cast on is the knit/smooth side, which is what I wanted.

The tip for any long cast on is to use markers to help you count. You can place them after every 20, or 50, or whatever number of stitches, and then not have to count all the stitches at once after you’re done. Much better than long counting, and coming up with a different number several times.

If you think ahead while you’re casting on, you can place the markers at your stitch repeats. Figure out how many stitches are outside the repeat and add them to the first section, then place the following markers to note your repeats.

A very common error is either missing or dropping a YO. You don’t notice until you’re on the next right side row, when you don’t have enough stitches between markers to work your repeat. I posted this in the last post, but I think it bears repeating. Here’s how to fix it:

I once took a class in fixing mistakes, and that teacher said you should count on the WS rows to make sure you have the right number and kind of stitches. Me, I’d rather relax on those WS rows and deal with mistakes on the next RS row. Both ways work, but I use those WS rows for reading or chatting!

I’m going to be teaching two of my favorite classes at Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival in September. This year’s festival runs from Friday Sept. 22 (classes only on Friday) through Sunday Sept. 24. The theme at OFFF this year is lace, and you know I love that!

I’m teaching Tink Drop Frog, Fixing Mistakes: Lace Edition on Saturday Sept. 23 from 9:30 to 12:30. We’ll be learning ways to fix lace mistakes when you’ve noticed them in the same row, a row or two later, or even later than that! This is an empowering class; you are really the boss of your knitting when you can use these techniques.

I’m also teaching Be Manipulative, Elongated Novelty Stitches on Sunday Sept. 24 from 1:30 to 4:30. The honeybee stitch from Go Tell the Bees is just one of the stitches we’ll be practicing. If you like the lacy look of these stitches, come learn them with me!

Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival is coming right up! September 27-28, and there are workshops on Friday, September 26, too. I’m teaching two classes, Blocking on Friday afternoon and Tink Drop Frog: Fixing Mistakes on Saturday afternoon. These are expanded versions of classes I teach in yarn shops, and we’ll have three hours to go through even more fun and demonstration on both of these topics. I hope you’ll join me.

If you’ve already mastered these knitterly topics, there are a lot more fiber-related classes available; you can see the full list here. Taking classes at OFFF is fun, and encourages the organizers to keep offering them from year to year. If you want more knitting classes, sign up for knitting classes! The same goes for spinning, weaving, felting, livestock management…The early registration deadline requires a postmark by September 5. This is the make or break day; if a class doesn’t have the minimum number of students by the registration deadline, the class won’t be offered. You can sign up for classes at OFFF, but only if they make the minimum by the early deadline, so why wait?

What else is fun at OFFF? Well, there are the adorable animals.

And the vendors! I love shopping the booths at OFFF. I’ve purchased spindles, yarn, fiber, books. There are vendors both outside on the lawn, and in the exhibition halls. (These pictures are from previous years.)

Wow. I’d never seen so much fiber in one place! Mostly animal, some still on the hoof, all gorgeous! It was a perfect autumn day. The Clackamas County Fairground was a sea of fiber-related booths, inside the buildings and outside on the lawn.

The PDXKnitbloggers were out in force, with lots of knitting, and spinning wheels, too. (That’s my Central Park Hoodie in the foreground.)

KnittedWit‘s booth was a riot of color! And e was sleeping like, well, a baby…

I was quite restrained, and only bought a wooden shawl pin. I’ll have to show you in my next post, because I didn’t take a picture of it in daylight. It’s worth the wait! I bought it from Toolman, DH of TiggywinkleKnits. It’s made of bubinga. The drop spindles were calling my name, but I don’t really want *another* hobby; I’m trying to keep up with the ones I have!

I met up with Michelle; we first met at the February Lady Sweater knitalong at Twisted. She’s almost done with her sweater; I was wearing mine. They’re similar colors, both Dream in Color Classy. My colorway is Night Watch, hers is Deep Seaflower, a little more green and purple. But the funny part was when I pulled out my Central Park Hoodie to knit. Her sweater and yarn are pictured on the left, mine on the right.